Home – Home – Jornals – Philosophy of Sciences 2024 number 3

The subject of attention in this article is the continuity between the essential components of Spinoza’s philosophy and what Descartes introduced to modern European philosophy. In this continuity, both what Spinoza joined in Descartes’ position and what he overcame and rejected in it are taken into consideration. Special attention is paid to the fact that in this overcoming Descartes’ inconsistency in realizing the materialistic component of his position is primarily taken into account. Particular attention is paid to the approaches of both thinkers to the following topics. First of all, it is the topic of God, which includes the reality of the existence of God and his substantial status, his relationship with the corporeal world, and the presence of self-consciousness in him. Two more such topics are the recognition of self-movement in the material universe and the regularity of what is happening in it. In the topic of man, attention is focused on the relationship between human body and soul, the mortality or immortality of soul, freedom of its will or lack thereof. It is concluded that both thinkers made their own historical contribution to modern European philosophy. If Spinoza aims to develop a materialistic position based on science to the greatest possible extent for his time, then Descartes’ texts outline all the main directions of modern European philosophy, which will be carefully studied by its subsequent creators, and the materialistic position is only one of them.,

The article provides science-grounded characteristics of the stages of the ancient scientific and technological revolution, which are developed based on adequate historical and scientific literature, and presents factual evidence of the patterns of change of its stages and directions. The reasons for the inevitable decline and failure of the scientific and technological revolution in Ancient Rome are revealed.,

The concept of “digital human” is now quite actively included in the categorical apparatus of philosophical and scientific knowledge. The study of this phenomenon in various fields of science produces its ambiguous understanding and forms many definitions that need to be systematized. Philosophy, being a knowledge that is pluralistic by its nature, develops a methodology for studying the digital human in various philosophical areas (phenomenology, hermeneutics, ontology, anthropology, etc.), which also generates many concepts and approaches concerning understanding the phenomenon. In this paper, the author attempts to perform an analytical review of existing approaches and concepts in the study of the phenomenon of digital human and to identify key positions and trends in the development of an appropriate scientific and philosophical methodology.,

The article examines the ecosystem foundations of the concept of social resilience as a theoretical and methodological approach to studying the ways in which society can overcome global challenges. The concept of resilience was proposed by the Canadian ecologist C.S. Holling. When studying the development of ecological systems in changing environmental conditions, Holling derived two characteristics of resilience. Those are (1) the ability of a system to absorb external influences and resist them while maintaining the initial parameters and (2) the magnitude of the impacts that a system can withstand before it passes into a different state. Based on the systems approach, at the beginning of the 21st century, the concept of resilience began to be used to analyze the ability of society or social groups to deal with the consequences of natural disasters. The article shows that adaptation, i.e. the ability of people to develop and implement measures to respond to changing external conditions, and transformability, i.e. the ability of society to transform its structure and find new development trajectories, play a key role in maintaining social resilience. The conclusion is made that further understanding of the substantive and theoretical-methodological foundations of the concept of resilience is needed for its subsequent use in theoretical and applied research on ways of overcoming the consequences of global challenges,

The article analyses the methodological anarchism of P. Feyerabend and its influence on the democratization of science. Current issues of epistemology are considered in the light of the ideas of the prominent thinker. Methodological anarchism implies the rejection of universal norms in science in favour of pluralism. Feyerabend advocated a variety of approaches and freedom in choosing methods. The COVID-19 pandemic has made the democratization of science urgent, involving broader society in creating and disseminating knowledge. However, this situation has also aggravated the crisis of expert knowledge and its politicization. The authors consider how methodological anarchism and the democratization of science are related to epistemological issues, including scientific validity, epistemic uncertainty, and ethical aspects of knowing.,

This work aims to show that relying on A. Kruglanski’s concept of the need for closure and applying to the logic of naturalized epistemology we may come to a particular version of contextualism (D. Lewis, K. DeRos, S. Cohen, etc.) in which the tendency “to consider justification in non-epistemic terms” will not be perceived as something that is unconditionally opposed to the classical idea of epistemic normativity. Naturalization of epistemology assumes that “we study a person as a physical subject” (W. Quine), which makes it possible to freely appeal to the results of applied psychology. A. Kruglanski’s concept reveals the nature of the psychological “motivational component” of the subject ascribing knowledge, who is fundamentally in a situation in which “decision-making is determined by practical interests”. As a heuristic, examples traditional for contextualism are considered which illustrate that “knowledge ascription depends on how much is at stake”, both from the point of view of the subject making the decision and from the point of view of third parties ascribing knowledge to this subject. In our opinion, in all such examples, the subject will know. Only the “external” assessment of the psychological state of the subject changes (and this allows supporters of contextualism to say that in some situations the subject knows, and in others does not), but this is an error made by the observer, and not the subject ascribing knowledge.,

The article argues that the formalism of quantum mechanics (QM) can be used to model phenomena and systems beyond QM and even physics, in particular in the socio-humanitarian field. As is known, this really takes place; A. Khrennikov’s quantum-like modeling (QLM) is an example. We propose a philosophical justification for QLM within the framework of contextual realism (CR). With regard to quantum physics, we speak of contextual quantum realism (CQR). The fundamental points in CR are the sensitivity of ontology to context and the understanding of contextuality as inseparable from normativity. A detailed account of the concept of CR can be found in our other works. Here we only briefly summarize it and apply it to understand the foundations and possibilities of QLM.,

This article begins a series of works on the conceptual analysis of the epistemological characteristics of ideas about the “gold standard” of medical research methodology. The results of the genesis of ideas concerning the relationship between the concept of randomization and that of causality are presented, and the grounds for randomization as a means of establishing causal relationships are analyzed.,

The article considers the prerequisites for the formation of physiology of blood circulation, its development and advancement of knowledge in the related field. The relevance of this work is due to the need to generalize and supplement the results of individual studies on the formation and development of circulatory physiology in the historical-scientific aspect, which will identify the key stages in shaping a holistic view of blood circulation processes. In this regard, the purpose of this review is to analyze the main achievements in the field of circulatory physiology from ancient times to the Modern Age (early 20th century). In preparing the article, publications in journals included in the Russian Science Citation Index, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science were mainly used; materials published in the last 10 years were preferred. The article shows that already in ancient times scientists wondered about the role of the heart in the process of blood circulation and the connection between the pulse and blood circulation. During the Middle Ages, empirical knowledge in this area continued to accumulate, the understanding of the structure and functioning of organs that are part of the blood circulation system expanded and deepened. In the Modern Age, the process of blood circulation in the human body was fully described and the role of the nervous system in blood circulation began to be studied. Nowadays, research in the field of circulatory physiology continues.,

The paper examines the background to the creation of P.P. Kirschenmann’s article “Science and its Metaphysical Interpretations” and its key content. It shows the relevance of the conclusions presented in Kirschenmann’s article for the development of modern research in the field of philosophy of information.,